The lockout eventually ended, and some of the effects of the deal were being felt Thursday with the news that the Tampa Bay Lightning would buy out Vincent Lecavalier, after only four seasons of his 11-year, $85 million deal.

Lecavalier signed a perfectly legal contract under the last collective bargaining agreement, but Tampa Bay had little choice but to let him go because the new CBA retroactively punished frontloaded deals by instituting a cap recapture penalty for players who retire before the end of such contracts.

"I think that the new CBA puts a team in a tough spot. That's why it's understandable," Lecavalier said. "That's why there are the buyouts."

That may be a bullish attitude to take, or it may lead to a more cynical approach. Hossa confirmed on Thursday that he may need back surgery on an injury he suffered during the Stanley Cup finals that made his leg go numb and caused him to miss Game 3.

"I was limping on the ice," Hossa said. "To tell you the truth, I didn't have much confidence because everybody was much faster. As soon you get a puck, I wasn't too confident to do things I'm usually able to do."

Backs and brains are the kind of things that could foreseeably end a player's career early, allowing his team to avoid the cap recapture penalty by putting him on long-term injured reserve instead of announcing his retirement, as the Boston Bruins have done with Marc Savard, and the Philadelphia Flyers with Chris Pronger.

Is it ridiculous to conceive of a world in which Hossa cites lingering back issues or concussion aftereffects as a reason not to play hockey anymore, thereby allowing the Blackhawks to avoid penalties? Not at all. Meanwhile, Lecavalier's career injury list has included foot, ankle, knee, one game for "upper body," shoulder, wrist, hand, one game for "undisclosed," and "lower body." Because Lecavalier has not suffered the "right kind" of injuries in his career, it's harder for the Lightning to imagine playing out the LTIR scenario, and therefore his buyout becomes a more necessary proposition.

The Blackhawks would be in trouble if the NHL decided to change the LTIR rules and apply them to past deals, which nobody could possibly justify... except that's exactly why the Lightning had to buy out a player who signed with the full intention of spending his entire career with a small-market team. Good thing they had that lockout to prevent such a nefarious thing from happening.